


on the path unwinding

by thisissirius



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Angst, Animal Transformation, Chris is a BAMF, Dustin being ridiculous, Humor, M/M, Realization, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-12
Updated: 2011-09-12
Packaged: 2017-10-23 16:29:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisissirius/pseuds/thisissirius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which eduardo turns into a cute zoo animal and mark comes to a realization that he needs a human eduardo around to deal with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on the path unwinding

**Author's Note:**

> this fic has been americanized thanks to my betas. all remaining britishisms are my own mistakes.

“I hope you’re not going to take that in with you,” Chris snapped, glaring at Mark through the rear view mirror.

Mark ignored him, intent on finishing the code for the new photo update. He only paused in his typing when Eduardo snorted from two seats over. “Save your breath, Chris. He’ll just find some way to create a new laptop from some sticks and grass.”

“That’s impossible,” Mark said, bristling at Eduardo’s tone. “I know you’re technologically impaired, Eduardo, but that’s just stupid.”

Dustin shifted in the front seat. “Look, there’s the zoo. Let’s shut up and get out of the car now.”

Taking the subject change for what it obviously was, Chris nodded and pulled the car into the parking lot. Mark saved his work and shut the laptop, resigned to a day without coding. Chris could kick up as much fuss as he liked about the laptop, and Mark still didn’t know what the big deal was; it wasn’t as if he was going to _enjoy_ walking around staring at a bunch of animals, but he wasn’t making Mark leave his iPhone behind. He made sure it was tucked safely into his pocket as the four of them climbed out of the car.

“I can’t believe I’m at the zoo,” Mark muttered, shoving his hands into his hoodie.

Chris snorted. “I’m not sure any of us can believe you’re here, Mark.”

“Yeah. I’m surprised you could tear yourself away from your work for a whole day,” Eduardo chimed in.

Mark glared angrily at the look on Eduardo’s face and then started walking toward the entrance. “This is for Dustin.”

“Yes,” Dustin cheered, throwing his arms out at the sight of the _Maryland Zoo_ sign looming above them. “This is going to be so cool.”

“I still don’t understand why we had to come all the way to Maryland to go to a zoo,” Chris groused and Dustin waved his hand vaguely.

“They have these tiny little deer thingies with small hooves.”

“What?” Chris kept stride with Dustin, probably to keep him in sight at all times. “What are you talking about?”

Dustin continued to wave his hands about in an exaggerated manner and the two of them walked on ahead, leaving Mark with Eduardo. Usually this wouldn’t be a problem for Mark; but ever since they had picked him up from the airport, Eduardo had been biting and angry every time he opened his mouth, especially if it was to something Mark said.

“You could try harder,” Mark said, scrolling through his iPhone to check his email.

Eduardo raised an eyebrow. “Oh? I wasn’t aware that I was the one causing a problem.”

“This is Dustin’s birthday.”

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t,” Eduardo bit out, sticking his hands in his pockets. “I’m certainly not here for _you_.”

Mark didn’t say anything. He just slipped his iPhone back into his pocket and continued walking. He looked sideways at Eduardo when they fell into step but it wasn’t completely surprising, especially not for someone who knew him as well as Mark. They hadn’t spoken in months and were barely speaking enough for any sort of friendship to re-emerge again, and Mark hadn’t bothered trying. There had been an Eduardo-sized hole in his life for too long but Mark wasn’t interested in trying to rebuild anything; Eduardo had made it more than clear that wouldn’t happen and Mark wasn’t interested in expending energy into a lost cause.

“Guys, come on!” Dustin was waving at them from the front gates and Mark shook his head, quickening his stride a little to get to Dustin faster. The last thing he needed was Dustin drawing more attention to them than was necessary.

 

 

“You know, normal people go into the gift shop _after_ they’ve seen the zoo.”

Mark ignored him and walked around the displays, deriding the over-priced items. Eduardo followed him around, seeming amused by the comments Mark was making but trying to keep the smile off of his face. Mark didn’t understand why he bothered at all. It didn’t matter how long they continued to pretend that they weren’t talking, Mark was always going to be able to read Eduardo as well as he had back at Harvard.

As they reached the stuffed animal section, Eduardo picked up a deer and turned it over in his hands. It looked smaller than the other toys and Mark snorted. “Trust you to pick the Bambi.”

Eduardo dropped the toy and glared at Mark. “Shame there isn’t a snake. It would really suit you.”

Mark shook his head and turned away, leaving the gift shop and grabbing his iPhone to check his mail. He hated public places like this; there were always too many people, too much sunshine and the smell was overpowering. Making his way down the packed walkway, Mark didn’t bother to check to see if Eduardo was following.

 

“Look, it’s your friend the mini Bambi,” Mark said snidely.

Eduardo ignored him but leaned over the fence. Dustin and Chris came up behind them, Dustin squealing like a girl and grinning. “See, I told you Mark. Little deer thingies.”

“They’re called dik-diks,” Chris said, looking at the little plaque against the display.

Dustin snorted and Chris glared at him, probably for being childish, but Mark thought that he had a point. Who the hell called a deer a dik-dik? When he said so aloud, even Eduardo couldn’t keep the grin off his face and Mark had to peer over the fence just to keep from saying something.

  


“They look kind of ridiculous.” Chris was the only one not leaning over the enclosure. “Their noses are a little-”

“Disjointed?”

Eduardo made a noise. “That’s not fair.”

“You’d know,” Mark said. He didn’t realise it was the wrong thing to say until he registered the silence and the look Eduardo was giving him.

“Would I?” There was something about Eduardo’s tone that Mark couldn’t put his finger on, but he shrugged with one shoulder, looking back down at the dik-dik. “Because it was only my nose that was disjointed, right Mark?”

Mark was set on ignoring him, but Eduardo stepped closer. Dustin and Chris shared a look that was all exasperation and annoyance. Used to it, Mark shook his head and glared at Eduardo. “You didn’t have to react the way you did.”

“Oh not this again,” Chris snapped. “Can’t you let it go for one day?”

“I was going to!” Eduardo waved a hand at Mark. “It’s just impossible to get along with him anymore!”

Mark pushed himself away from the enclosure and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I wasn’t aware you were trying. You’ve made it more than clear that you would rather be hanging out with anybody else but me.”

“And you wonder why! You’re _impossible_!”

Before Mark could reply, the little antelope the other side of the fence bleated and kicked out, catching Eduardo in the shin.

 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Chris asked again, peering over the back of the seat.

Eduardo had his pant leg rolled up to the knee and was checking out his shin. There was a hoof-shaped bruise on his leg and Mark noted that it looked red and angry. He turned quickly back to his laptop when Eduardo lifted his head. “Yeah. It doesn’t even hurt.”

Which didn’t make sense to any of them but whatever. Mark had more important things to deal with if it wasn’t hurting. Eduardo could live with it without making a fuss if it wasn’t anything too serious.

“Well I had fun _anyway_ ,” Dustin said, waving the stuffed dik-dik that Chris had purchased on the way out. Personally, Mark thought it was a pretty insensitive thing to do but when he said so, he received three incredulous looks and a laugh from Eduardo. “Whatever, Mark. You’re just trying to ruin my fun.”

“What are you going to call it?”

Mark raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to give it a name?”

Dustin peered back over his shoulder and sighed. “Mark, sometimes I wonder how you function amongst the real people of the world.”

“You’re not including yourself in that, are you?” Chris quipped, grinning when Dustin punched him in the shoulder.

Dustin sniffed and looked outside the window. “Haters.”

Eduardo said nothing, rubbing his leg gently where the dik-dik had kicked him. Mark opened his mouth to ask if it was okay but Eduardo just glared at him, “It’s _fine_.”

“Right,” Mark said stiffly. He buried himself back in his work and didn’t talk to any of them until they pulled up into the hotel parking lot.

 

“So you’re going back to Singapore?”

“Dustin’s birthday is over,” Eduardo said, leaning against the doorjamb. They were still at the hotel and Mark wondered at how amicable they were being. They hadn’t left the car on the best of terms, if they could ever be on those again, but Eduardo was speaking to him at least. It was a startling change from the animosity that had been following Mark around since Eduardo’s arrival. “There’s nothing else for me here.”

He seemed to be waiting for something, but Mark didn’t know what. “You’d better leave if you want to catch your flight.”

“Yeah, I suppose I had better.”

There was that edge to Eduardo’s voice again, like the one at the zoo, and Mark looked up. “Why do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?” Eduardo feigned ignorance but there was something on his face. There was _always_ an expression on his face.

Mark shut his laptop with an _audible_ snap and winced. “Keep talking to me like that. Like I’m missing something.”

This time, Eduardo laughed outright. “You’re always missing something, Mark. Something that’s right in front of your face.”

“If it bothers you that much, just tell me. I’m not going to bother wasting my time in figuring it out when it’s obvious you could just tell me what you want me to know.”

It was the wrong thing to say and Mark knew it immediately. Eduardo straightened, tugging on his jacket and glaring angrily until the silence stretched too thin. “Sorry I’m not being interesting enough for you, Mark. I’ve willingly spent time in your company, time I could have put to better use, and I’m starting to think it was the worst decision I ever made.”

Mark opened his mouth to speak but Eduardo was already talking over him.

“No, actually, I think the worst decision I ever made was being your friend in the first place.”

The instant the words were out of his mouth, Mark felt a tinling chillg run up his spine and rubbed gently at the back of his neck. When he looked up again, Eduardo was gone. There were a few minutes hesitation and then he blinked, looked away and then looked back.

“Shit.”

 

 

Chris peered into the box and then up at Mark’s face. A beat. Then he did it again. “Are you serious?”

Mark just shrugged and sat down at his desk. He opened his laptop and only glanced at the box once. Maybe twice. “It just happened.”

“Mark,” Dustin said, a grin wider than it should be. “This is the _best thing_ that has ever happened.”

Chris didn’t look sure about that but then he was always reluctant to agree with anything Dustin said that sounded even remotely ridiculous. Mark sometimes wondered how they functioned outside of work but, contrary to popular belief, he was aware enough not to mention that out loud. “Dustin, shut up. Mark, seriously, things like this just don’t happen.”

Mark shut the laptop lid and glared at Chris. “We were in the hotel room and we were _talking_. When I looked up, _that_ was standing in the doorway.”

Dustin reached into the box with a finger. Mark opened his mouth to berate him and shut it abruptly when he saw the look on Chris’ face. He did glare at Dustin, however, when he pulled the box’s occupant out and set it on the table. It tried to steady its hooves unsuccessfully and planted them apart, looking shaky. Blinking huge brown eyes up at Mark,who was _not_ moved by the sight, it stumbled away from Dustin and tried to duck out of the way every time he went to touch it. Chris was looking curious but Dustin’s face shifted to one of dismay. “It’s a deer. That used to be Eduardo.”

“It’s not a deer,” Chris says, in that tone he had of making Mark feel like he was back at Harvard. “It’s one of those things from the zoo. A dik-dik.”

The little deer thing (Eduardo!) on the table tried to walk towards Mark, who just stared at it. He was all awkward legs and too big hooves and Mark frowned. The deer stumbled, letting out a little whistling noise as he landed on his knees. Mark absolutely did not care about that but he thought it was probably a good idea to help it anyway, scooping Eduardo up and holding him out at arm’s length. Instead of trying to get away like he had with Dustin, Eduardo seemed more than happy to be in Mark’s hands. Odd, considering they had been fighting the moment before Eduardo had decided to become a dik-dik. Eduardo made the whistling noise again - this time it sounded like a different kind of whistle and he had no idea how he could even tell. Chris and Dustin were staring at him.

“Mark?”

“He fell,” Mark snapped.

Eduardo kicked his stupid legs and Mark pulled him closer, tucking him under his arm and shoving his free hand into his hoodie pocket. “We’ll be in the cafeteria.”

As he walked away, he heard Chris mutter, “Does he even know where the cafeteria is?”

The door to his office shut before he could hear Dustin’s answer.

 

 

Mark was going to be clever about this.

He opened his laptop, Eduardo stamping about on the desk next to him, nosing and picking at all the papers and empty packets Mark had discarded. He seemed happy enough for now. Mark brought up Google and typed in _dik-dik_. He had a feeling he was going to have to know exactly what a dik-dik did.

There wasn’t a whole lot he couldn’t have figured out for himself. Apparently, their diet consisted mostly of berries and foliage. Foliage was easy enough back at the house but he supposed there was probably going to be some sort of fruit in the canteen that he could give to Eduardo. If not, he would make sure they stocked berries for the foreseeable future. Which led to yet another problem that Mark was sure they were going to have to consider; just how long was Eduardo going to _be_ a deer?

“Hey Mark,” Dustin said, walking in with Chris and dropping down onto the couch. “How’s it going?”

Mark was watching Eduardo. The moment the door had opened, Eduardo had stepped closer to the laptop, his hindquarters bumping against the lid. He lifted a back hoof and put it down again, inches from Mark’s hand. Chris came to stand next to Mark, peering over his shoulder.

“You’re actually looking them up?”

“Well,” Mark said, defensively. “Eduardo’s one. We need to know what to _do_.”

“It would probably be sensible to find out why he even changed in the first place.” Chris reached over the laptop to Eduardo who bent his back trying to keep Chris’ hand in sight. He was more skittish around people then Mark would have expected. Eduardo had always been the kind of person who craved company. He loved people and they loved him. As a deer, that was obviously different.

“They’re nocturnal,” Mark noted, shutting his laptop. “He’s going to get really annoying during the night.”

Chris looked at Mark incredulously, stroking Eduardo’s back. Mark’s brow drew down into a frown when he realised that Eduardo was shaking. It was the sort of thing Beast did when he was scared of something, but Eduardo wasn’t moving away. Chris was scary but Eduardo was clearly doing his best not to get skittish with the attention.

“I’m also going to have to shut Beast away.”

Eduardo’s ears came forward at the mention of Beast and he stamped a hoof, letting out a high whistle.

“It’s okay,” Chris soothed and Eduardo stopped shaking for a moment before trotting over to Mark and tentatively lifting his front hooves, resting them on Mark’s stomach. Mark wasn’t quite sure how he was supposed to react; it was the first time Eduardo had really initiated contact between them and it had barely been half a day since Mark had shoved him into the box and brought him into the office. Still, Mark couldn’t resist leaning over and resting his hand on top of Eduardo’s head and was pleasantly surprised when Eduardo let out another whistling sound, softer this time. He kicked himself back off of Mark and hovered at the edge of the table, as if trying to decide just where he wanted to go.

Chris and Dustin had looks on their faces that Mark did not want to analyse. He kept a hand on Eduardo’s back anyway, stroking the little quiff of hair between his ears.

“Fine,” Chris said. “By the way, we’re coming shopping with you later.”

“I’m sure I can-”

“Mark,” Chris said, tone hard. He had that stubborn look on his face that Mark knew better than to argue with.

  


Mark scooped Eduardo up into his hands. There was something tight happening in his chest as he looked down and saw the way the dik-dik was curled up in them, nose pressed to Mark’s finger. He looked so stupidly vulnerable and when Chris remarked that Eduardo seemed to have taken to Mark and shied away from everybody else, Mark shrugged his way through an explanation. Eduardo had always just been around (except for when he wasn’t but Mark refused to think about that right now) so it figured he would be when he was a nine inch deer (sorry, _antelope_ ) and unable to take care of himself.

Mark rested his hands on the desk. He didn’t quite know what to do. He should have been working on coding but that meant putting Eduardo down and he looked comfortable wrapped up in Mark’s fingers. This was going to be completely inconvenient and Mark was going to be completely unproductive for the rest of the day.

Eduardo always managed to entice Mark away from his work one way or another.

Opting to back away from his laptop, Mark dropped down onto his sofa and leaned back, resting Eduardo on his stomach. Almost immediately, Eduardo whistled and shuffled and kicked his way up Mark’s chest until his nose was pressed into the curve of Mark’s neck and his back legs were stretched out behind him. Mark just stared. “I know what you’re doing.”

Eduardo, not unpredictably, said nothing. Mark sighed and rested a hand on his back, stroking the coarse fur. Eduardo pressed his nose into Mark’s armpit. He ignored the look Chris and Dustin shared between them and glared until they left his office.

“You’re going to be bad for me, you know,” Mark said, looking at his abandoned laptop on the desk. “I need to do some work.”

Eduardo just snuffled.

 

 

“Mark?” Dustin peered round the door. “You’re leaving?”

Mark lifted Eduardo with him as he stood, tucking him under his arm and moving towards the desk. “I’m taking him back to the house.”

Dustin held the door open as Mark grabbed his laptop and tucked it under his free arm. Eduardo didn’t stir as they left the office, head still resting alongside Mark’s chest and he ignored the looks and whispers as he made his way to the exit.

“Catch ya later, Mark.”

Mark didn’t bother replying; Chris and Dustin would show up no matter what he said.

In the car, Eduardo finally woke, settling on the front seat and curling up in a mess of limbs and fur and horns. Once down, he peered over the top of his legs at Mark. He didn’t look very safe just sitting there but Mark didn’t take Beast out in the car and it had never occurred to him to buy a basket should such an eventuality occur. That was easily solved.

Putting in a quick call to his assistant while driving, he demanded she have a basket sent home with Chris or Dustin and cut off her distressed protests. She had already spent the day fielding his many requests for ‘anything and everything a miniature deer, _antelope_ , sorry Chris, could ever need.’ He was probably going to end up with her resignation on his desk but he was fully prepared for that.

As they pulled up to his driveway, Mark looked over at Eduardo and rested his hands against the wheel. “I could have chosen an apartment.”

Eduardo was already clambering to his feet, stumbling on the soft fabric of the chair and whistling a little with the effort to keep stationary. He peered over the window and surveyed Mark’s home. _His_ home for the near future. It was weird. Eduardo had never seen this house and yet he was essentially moving in for the duration of his dik-dik days. Mark had no idea what he was going to do with that, much less figure out how long Eduardo was actually going to _be_ like this.

“Come on,” Mark said, pulling Eduardo with him as he climbed out of the car.

Beast was waiting impatiently on the inside of the gate and Eduardo’s ears immediately laid flat, his body quivering in Mark’s arms. That could be a problem if they didn’t come to a compromise. Mark hadn’t planned on buying a dog but Beast was in the house now and he was Mark’s and he didn’t want to have to sacrifice the dog for the dik-dik or vice versa.

“Learn to get along,” he said, putting Eduardo on the floor and stepping back. Eduardo immediately looked up at Mark, his eyes shining with betrayal. It was really starting to intrigue Mark how Eduardo had such a range of expressions when he was nine inches high and an _antelope_.

Said antelope was currently prowling around Beast, wriggling his nose and bumping his head against the dog’s side. For his part, Beast was patiently waiting it out. He was the most ridiculous dog Mark had ever seen, not that he’d seen many, but he was usually content and patient; something Chris said was a product of being owned by Mark. When Eduardo was done sniffing, he took a step back and then looked up at Mark.

“Don’t look at me.”

It was Beast’s turn to move and he did so, walking straight past Eduardo and towards the house.

“See? I told you not to panic.”

Eduardo whistled but trotted obediently alongside Mark as they walked up the path to the front door. He paused occasionally to sniff and test something out but as soon as Mark was too far ahead, he would run quickly to catch up. Beast was rolling around on the step when they approached and Eduardo looked a bit disdainful. Mark was quickly learning to categorize the various expressions on his face and when he looked up at Mark and then down at the step, whistling when Mark didn’t immediately lean down to pick him up, Mark snorted. He bent down and swept him into his arms, not realising there was a smile on his face until the door had shut and Eduardo was back on the floor. He should have tried to give Eduardo to Chris or Dustin; they would probably be much better suited to look after something like a dik-dik. Mark had enough trouble with Beast, who had to look after himself for the most part.

Not that Eduardo would have gone with either of them.

Mark decided to leave them to get to know each other and disappeared into the living room, setting up his laptop and grabbing a beer from the fridge. He could probably get in a few hours’ worth of coding before Chris and Dustin dragged him out of the house to the store to buy shit. He was just wiring himself in when Eduardo trotted through the door with Beast at his heels. The two of them settled down in front of the table but Eduardo kept his head high, watching Mark. It was distracting but not enough that Mark couldn’t code. He didn’t wire himself in but then he told himself that it was because he found the staring creepy.

Instead, he kept watching the way Eduardo would wiggle his nose and sniff at the carpet, completely disinterested in the way Beast was curled up around him. It wasn’t until Mark’s phone started vibrating across the table that he realised he had stopped coding a while ago and was just watching Eduardo. This was going to get ridiculous; having a dik-dik around really was bad for productivity.

 

 

“Can we please buy him-”

“No,” Chris said.

Mark grabbed some berries out of the produce section and dumped them in the cart. Eduardo watched his progress with interest, ears pricked forward and nose wriggling. “Not yet.”

At the admonishment, Eduardo whistled but turned his head back down the aisle. Shoppers glanced down at him with interest and shock which Mark gladly ignored. It had taken Chris and his unfailing diplomatic skills for them to be allowed to take an animal into the grocery store. Mark’s bribes had been useless and nobody ever relied on Dustin’s sense of humor to get them anything, so Chris had given them assurances. Mark still didn’t know exactly how he did it, but on the promise of never letting Wardo out of his hoodie pocket and a threat about the person currently wheeling a cart around the store with a miniature dog in the front, Mark was allowed to take Eduardo into the store.

“How about-”

“No.”

“But this-”

“No.” Chris reached over Mark and tugged the clothes Dustin kept trying to drop into the shopping cart back out. He shoved them at Dustin and glared. “Stop it.”

“But he’s going to look so adorable in a shirt!”

“He’s an _antelope_ , Dustin!”

Mark ignored the both of them and Eduardo whistled happily from under his arm.Admittedly, he shouldn’t really have Eduardo under his arm but Mark had never been one to follow the rules and he’d been avoiding Chris’ glares for the better part of five years. “What are you staring at?”

Eduardo just kicked his legs in a way that Mark was quickly learning meant that he was happy. They walked down each aisle, Chris and Dustin fighting over what food was suitable for an antelope and whether Eduardo really would look good in a shirt. Mark grabbed some red vines and glared down at Eduardo, daring him to make any sort of noise. When nothing was forthcoming, Mark grabbed a second, but on his third try, Eduardo made a high whistling noise. Ignoring him, Mark reached for them again but Eduardo kicked his legs hard, catching Mark in the side.

“ _Wardo_.”

Eduardo kicked again, more carefully, but still forceful. With a shake of his head, Mark dropped the red vines back onto the shelf and carried on down the aisle. “Who would have thought you’d be just as demanding as an antelope?”

“Hey, that’s it!” Dustin shouted, riding on the back of the cart until he reached Mark. “Wardolope.”

“Wardo-what?” Chris asked.

Even Mark looked incredulous. Wardolope? He knew that Dustin was always calling Eduardo ridiculous things like Deerwardo, but Wardolope actually sounded... acceptable. “Wardolope.”

Another happy whistle, another kick.

“Figures,” Chris said.

 

 

Evidently, Chris couldn’t hold out for long on the whole clothes front.

“It’s a bow-tie,” Dustin said, proudly.

On the desk, Eduardo turned around and whistled happily, stamping his little legs as he showed off the bow-tie around his neck. It was obvious that a normal tie would have looked ridiculous on Eduardo but this worked surprisingly well. He stared up at Mark, obviously waiting for something. Mark wasn’t sure what it was.

  


“Mark,” Chris said pointedly. “What do you think?”

Oh. “Fine. It’s fine, Wardo.”

Eduardo made a noise and then looked down at the floor. Mark picked him up and put him down on the floor, watching carefully as Eduardo trotted around the office, head held high as if he wanted as many people as possible to see his bowtie. It wasn’t until he looked plaintively at the door that Mark realised he was not going to be satisfied with just showing off to Mark, Chris and Dustin.

“I knew it,” Mark said, pushing himself out of the chair. “So desperate for attention.”

The bleat this time was short but Eduardo walked happily out of the door, trotting and running around the office like he owned it, _Mark’s_ people leaning down to coo at him as he walked by. Some even paused in their work to stroke at his head and back. Mark resisted the urge to slam the door and dropped back into his seat, staring at his closed laptop.

“Jealous?”

Mark ignored Dustin’s grin and looked through the glass at Eduardo. He had his front legs up on a chair and was whistling happily at one of the new interns. As if he could sense Mark looking at him, he turned and whistled again. The intern paled a little but didn’t move her hand. Mark shook his head, turning back to his laptop. Whatever. Eduardo could do what he liked.

“When you leave, shut the door behind you.”

“Mark-”

“Shut it.”

“You’re being stupid, Mark,” Chris said from the couch. He had all of his paperwork spread out all over the cushions and he nodded his head in Eduardo’s direction. “I doubt he’d come home with you if he really wanted the attention from anyone else. It’s obvious he’s around here for you.”

Mark just shrugged. “Like I said, he can do what he likes.”

Chris snorted, exasperated, and didn’t say anything else.

Eduardo trotted back into the room a little while later, kicking at the base of Mark’s chair and whistling. Mark rolled his eyes and stared down at him. He didn’t say anything and Eduardo blinked his huge eyes, stamping his foot.

“Don’t be an asshole, Mark,”

Mark relented and picked Eduardo up, depositing him on the table. The bowtie was crooked and Mark poked at it, half-smiling when Eduardo tried to bend his head to look and ended up almost falling over. He peered up at Mark, blinking.

“He looks ridiculous like that,” Dustin said, reaching over to run his fingers through the hair on Eduardo’s head.

Mark swiped Eduardo off of the desk so fast he let out a little whistle. As soon as he was tucked against Mark’s side, he nosed into Mark’s hoodie pocket and settled, head poking out of the other side. The little quiff that Dustin had been trying to settle was back in place and Mark grinned.

“Looks better like that.”

He ignored Dustin’s pout and walked out of the room.

 

 

 

“You’re impossible,” Mark said, watching as Eduardo splayed his feet on the table and let out a loud whistle, drawing attention from everyone else in the cafeteria. People were already cooing and whispering and Mark glared at all of them. “Stop being ridiculous.”

Eduardo turned back to him.

“So why aren’t you angry with me?”

Eduardo just bleated, butting his nose against Mark’s hand. Mark let him, making no move to encourage the movements or stopping them. “You always did like to make things difficult for me.”

His only reply was another bleat. Mark was really beginning to miss Eduardo’s voice, even if it was only to berate Mark for existing.

 

 

“Hey Mark,” Dustin said, swivelling in his chair to face the door. “Is that a dik-dik in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?”

Mark snorted and just walked right on by as Chris smacked Dustin in the back of the head. “I can’t believe you just made that joke.”

 

 

“I need to get to my keyboard.”

Eduardo stared at Mark, who wondered how a dik-dik could possibly convey the same look that human Eduardo gave him when he was demanding Mark step away from the computer. He had one hoof hovering over the keyboard as though he would actually _step on it_ if Mark didn’t move right now.

Mark narrowed his eyes. Eduardo stared back.

It was a stand-off and they both knew it.

“I hate you,” Mark said and Eduardo let out a high-pitched whistle. “I hope that wasn’t a laugh.”

Eduardo blinked large, innocent eyes and butted Mark’s chest with his head.

“Fine, fine,” Mark snapped, lifting Eduardo from the desk and waiting while he wriggled into Mark’s hoodie and got comfortable. “When you’re human again, we are talking about this, Wardo.”

Most of the people at their desks were looking at Mark like he was crazy but Dustin gave him a thumbs up and a grin as Mark slipped a hand into his hoodie and stroked Eduardo’s back.

 

 

The first time Eduardo fell asleep on Mark’s desk, legs askew and face buried in his flank, Mark stared at him for a full fifteen minutes before a shout from outside startled him back into awareness. He shook his head angrily and demanded his assistant call Chris into his office. It would have been easier just to call Chris on his cell or message him over Facebook but Mark was feeling vindictive and angry and if other people had to suffer, so be it.

Dustin poked his head around the door the instant he heard what Mark had said and stared at the sleeping Wardo. His eyes did something weird and _soft_ like Eduardo’s used to do and Mark felt sick. People should stop having feelings in his office. When Chris entered his office two seconds later, angry and spouting something about _asshole bosses who need to learn to use their own goddamn phones, I swear to god, Mark_ , slamming the door closed behind him. He stared at Dustin who was wind-milling his arms wildly and making shushing motions.

“Wardolope’s sleeping.”

Mark shook his head at the ridiculous nickname but Chris was peering over Dustin’s shoulder, frowning. “So what’s the problem?”

“He can’t sleep on my desk,” Mark said, glaring because he shouldn’t have to explain that to someone like Chris.

“You,” Chris snapped, waggling his finger like a teacher, “are _impossible_.”

They stared each other down and Mark settled in for the long haul; really, Mark only gave into Chris when he felt it was necessary, because he cared a little sometimes. This was different. This was Eduardo, sleeping on his desk and Mark had already lost half an hour’s work. Letting this continue was not possible.

With a sigh, Chris relented. “Fine. You owe me so much for this, Mark. One day I am going to cash in and bankrupt you.”

Mark stared down at Eduardo, thinking back to the depositions and he blinked slowly. Chris and Dustin shared an uncomfortable look which Mark promptly ignored and lifted his hand, stroking Eduardo’s back softly. It was hard to apologize for something Mark could never explain. He tilted his head a little and Chris smiled, carefully and soft.

“I’ll find a box or something.”

“And I’ll find something to line it with,” Dustin offered silently.

Mark just nodded, aware that he should thank them for all their help but they were already leaving his office. He should have thanked them tenfold for everything they had done over the course of their friendship but he never had before and they never expected him to; friendship didn’t come with a price, they said, and Mark hadn’t understood at the time but he had grown to. Maybe it was a lesson he should have learned when he and Eduardo - cutting off that thought before it could conclude, Mark kept his attention focused on Eduardo, who was currently leaning into his touch.

Mark was still stroking Eduardo’s back when they both returned a few minutes later, Dustin with a bag of wood shavings and Chris with a cardboard box. Mark raised an eyebrow at the shavings but Dustin just smirked. “I know a guy in maintenance.”

Chris snorted. “Of course you do. Here, Mark.”

He put the box on the floor and Dustin dumped some of the shavings into the box, layering it generously so that Eduardo would have somewhere to stay when he wanted to sleep. Ripping one side of the cardboard away, Chris left it open so that Eduardo could come and go as he pleased. When they were done, and Mark had placed some of the left over lunch berries in the box, he lifted Eduardo gently from the desk. There was a snuffle and a nudge of Eduardo’s nose against his thumb which Mark swallowed down the urge to comment on and placed him in the box.

The three of them stared down at the sleeping Eduardo and Mark blinked. “He looks-“

“Small?” Dustin asked.

“Cute?” Chris offered.

“-Like Wardo,” Mark said finally. He didn’t tell them that Eduardo used to fall asleep with his head splayed against Mark’s stomach and fingers tight in the fabric of whatever t-shirt Mark happened to be wearing. He didn’t tell them that Eduardo would slot his body alongside Mark’s, face serene and _cute_ and curled in on himself so that he seemed smaller than he was. He didn’t tell them but they knew anyway.

 

 

Eduardo woke once during the afternoon, blinking and taking in his surroundings. He made a soft noise once, shuffled about in the shavings and peered at Mark accusingly.

“Don’t pretend this is putting you out,” Mark said, but he dragged the box closer to his leg and the edge of the desk. Eduardo nodded once before resting his head back in the sawdust and Mark rolled his eyes. “You’re so obvious.”

 

 

That night, Mark dumped Eduardo in the basket with Beast but spent the entire evening walking backwards and forwards from his bed to the corner of the room, reaching down to stroke Eduardo’s back.

  


On the thirteenth attempt to calm a skittish Eduardo, Mark reached down and glared at him. “If you don’t stop being irritating, Eduardo, I’m going to call Chris to come and get you.”

Eduardo stared back, glaring equally hard as Mark. Mark was thinking about writing to some animal experts on the subject of how expressive dik-dik faces could be. He didn’t think anyone would believe him.

“What?”

Beast was blinking lazily from beside Eduardo, oddly content with watching the goings on in the bedroom. Rather than getting annoyed with Eduardo’s obvious distress, the dog was willing to watch this play out. He’d never managed to get one over on Mark, and Mark was intent on not letting Eduardo do the same. He wasn’t into favoritism, even if Eduardo used to be human.

“No,” Mark said, when Eduardo’s head swung toward the bed. “No.”

There was another stare off and Mark knew he was going to lose; Eduardo was just going to make the most obscene amount of noise and he wouldn’t get any of the little sleep he needed.

“ _Fine_ ,” he snapped. “Just for one night.”

Trotting smugly out of the basket, and bleating happily at Beast, he walked right up to the bed and bleated again, waiting for Mark. Beast was out of the basket like a shot, leaping onto the bed and turning once, giving Mark the stink eye. Mark couldn’t say no to him, either, and he was never going to let Eduardo live this down when he was human again. Reaching down to lift Eduardo on to the bed, Mark deposited him next to Beast and climbed back into bed. He glared at the ceiling as he felt both dog and dik-dik wandering around the cover in an attempt to get comfortable. Somewhere between Beast sliding under Mark’s hand, long fingers resting on the fur of his back and Eduardo settling down by Mark’s left ear, nose tucked in against the skin of Mark’s neck, Mark fell asleep.

“Don’t forget you have a meeting tomorrow morning,” Chris said, picking up the sheets of paper off of Mark’s desk and rolling his eyes. “Don’t think I appreciate having to find you a new assistant, either.”

“It’s not my fault she got tired of the demands of a nine-inch antelope,” Mark said, snidely.

Eduardo’s box in the corner was currently occupied, sawdust scattered everywhere from his particularly high-spirited activities that morning when Mark had tempted him out with berries. Someone, not Mark, was going to have to clean that up later. He added a mental note to get Dustin to do it in payment for the stupid bow-tie. Eduardo was still adamant that he wasn’t going to take it off.

“Fine. I won’t be able to take him in, though,” Mark said. He didn’t have any particular feelings in regards to keeping the investors happy but Chris did, and he was probably going to insist that a dik-dik wasn’t exactly high on the list of things they wanted to see in the boardroom. Mark was, however, and no, he couldn’t get out of it just because he had Eduardo to look after.

“Anyone in the office would take care of him if you asked them, Mark. They dote on him like they dote on Wardo.”

“Yes,” Mark said. He wasn’t particularly happy about that, either.

Chris paused. “There’s always Dustin.”

Mark raised an eyebrow.

“He thinks you’re still mad about the bow-tie.”

“I am,” Mark said. “But he can look after Eduardo.”

Peering at them from over the top of his box, Eduardo let out a sound that wasn’t a whistle and wasn’t a cry, but somewhere in between.

“What? Don’t look at me like that.”

Amused, Chris looked between the two of them and then kicked the base of Mark’s chair. “You better turn up. I won’t be impressed if you’re not there.”

“Alright, alright. I promise to attend no matter how high he whistles at me.”

Eduardo whistled shrilly in what Mark was starting to suspect as just his way of irritating everyone around him.

“I knew you were being obtuse when I told you not to pee where Beast does.” He looked at Eduardo, who leaned down, his head parallel to his flank.

“I think you embarrassed him, Mark,” Chris said, but he was grinning as he left.

 

 

Not surprisingly, Dustin was the worst person that Mark could have chosen to look after Eduardo.

He sent Mark a picture halfway through the meeting of Eduardo sitting outside in the yard, lying down by the gate, and Mark stared at it for a long time. He could see Chris glaring at him out of the corner of his eye, but it wasn’t like the meeting required Mark’s input right now, and Eduardo looked so stupidly sad in the picture. It made him want to leave both the meeting and the Facebook offices and go right back home. Angry at the idea, Mark forced himself back into the present.

It didn’t stop him being even more difficult than normal with Chris. It had been his idea to leave Eduardo with Dustin, after all. Chris wasn’t stupid and, once the meeting was broken up and they could escape back to Mark’s office, he spent half an hour telling Mark that he never usually listened to him anyway, and to just bring Eduardo to work next time and stop bothering him. Mark left the office and drove back to the house.

Almost as if he knew that Mark was coming, Eduardo was already pawing at the gate when Mark approached it, clambering against the wood as if he could get to him faster. Walking in, Mark watched with barely concealed amusement as Eduardo butted at his leg and stood on Mark’s flip-flops with his tiny hooves. Taking pity on him, Mark swept Eduardo from the ground and tucked him under his arm.

Dustin told him later, much later, that Eduardo heard him coming from down the street, head coming up and hooves pawing at the gate long before Mark pulled in. He also mentioned, much to Mark’s chagrin, that if there had been any doubt before that about the dik-dik being Eduardo, that cleared it up for him. Nobody else would be so happy to see Mark.

All the way to the house, Eduardo kicked his legs happily and Mark ignored Dustin’s snort as he walked in and shut the door behind him.

Mark overheard Dustin telling Chris about the way Mark looked at Eduardo; like he was Facebook  
and coding and the _world_ all wrapped into one little antelope package.

If Mark didn’t step in or try and disabuse Dustin of his notion that Eduardo was _the best thing that had ever happened to him_ , well, that was up to him.

 

 

Mark grew to expect the sight of Eduardo sitting on the edge of his desk, staring at him with those ridiculous wide eyes. Dustin wouldn’t let Mark pull the bowtie off and if it was left behind at home because Mark accidentally ‘forgot’ to pick it up, Eduardo would make horrendous noises until Dustin produced the spare from his desk. Mark was being assaulted from all sides and he was not impressed with the way things were turning out. Eduardo was a bad influence on Dustin, whether human or dik-dik.

“You’re impossible,” Mark said, looking up at Eduardo. He received the same docile stare in return and Mark wasn’t surprised; Eduardo had never seemed put out by Mark talking on the end of thoughts. Unlike Erica, he had always been able to tell which parts he was supposed to reply to and which were just _thinking out loud_ (there had been one time when he couldn’t but even now, Mark doesn’t want to think about it).

Eduardo let out a noise that sounded like _zik zik_ and Mark snorted. “You realise that’s the noise _female_ dik-diks make?”

Eduardo kicked him in the hand and stomped to the edge of the desk. Dik-dik sulking. “Now I _know_ you’re Wardo.”

With a whistle that seemed especially harsh, Eduardo turned his back on Mark and shuffled to the end of the desk. He lay down with his back to Mark and Mark grinned, opening his laptop. He started to code but didn’t wire in completely. He wasn’t impressed with Dustin’s observation that Mark hadn’t wired himself in since Eduardo had transformed into a dik-dik and Chris’ amused reply that it was because Mark wanted to know what Eduardo was doing at all times in case he hurt himself.

Mark had the worst friends and he had no idea why he let them bother him so much of the time.

 

 

Eduardo let out that stupid _zik zik_ noise every time Mark tried to touch something even remotely unhealthy and he glared. “What?”

Chris was grinning as he reached over for a salad and a roll, dropping them onto Mark’s tray. Eduardo didn’t do anything. “See? He’s just looking out for you, Mark.”

  


“You’re lucky you’re a _deer_ ,” Mark snapped, wishing he could stalk away from Eduardo, but it was kind of impossible when Eduardo looked so content with his head sticking out of Mark’s hoodie pocket.

“Antelope,” Chris admonished. Mark ignored him in favor of carrying his food back over to one of the tables and setting it down.

Eduardo looked up at Mark with his stupid eyes and Mark motioned at one of the canteen staff. Eduardo seemed to be peering around the table to see what he was doing but Mark was confident that this would be well received. The staff person – Mark wasn’t sure what her name was – arrived with a bowl of berries, and Eduardo kicked happily in Mark’s pocket, thankfully nowhere near Mark’s body. The bowl was set down on the side and Eduardo struggled to get out of the hoodie, Mark helping him up onto the table so that he could bury his nose amongst the berries and start eating.

“He seems to have left his manners in his real body,” Mark said, amused.

Chris snorted and even the staff member was grinning. Eduardo looked up, berry juice smeared on his face and Mark swiped it off, Eduardo nudging his hand and whistling. The staff around the table all had those huge eyes that Eduardo used to have when he looked at Mark, and he glared at them all until they turned back to their own lunches.

“I find it odd that I didn’t have to explain to them why Eduardo was suddenly a dik-dik.”

“Probably because he looked so much like Bambi before.”

Eduardo didn’t look too impressed with that assessment. Mark snorted. “I don’t know where that comes from. He just looks like... Eduardo.”

“Yeah,” Chris said. “I figured you’d say something like that.”

Mark shrugged and fed Eduardo another berry. Eduardo sniffed at the fruit and then bit it straight out of Mark’s hand, chewing it down noisily. There was no way that Mark was going to let Eduardo forget this when he turned back into a human. (He _would_ turn back. There was no doubt in Mark’s mind.)

 

 

There was a huge park behind Mark’s house and he had never really bothered to explore it. Walking around parks seemed counterproductive to Mark until he got Beast. Now he had a reason to go to the park and Eduardo seemed to perk up considerably when he realised he would have to go along as well.

Beast yapped happily at Mark’s heels as he led both dog and dik-dik around the park. More calm and sedate, Eduardo was happy to stick by Mark as they made their way along the path. Routinely checking emails and calls, Mark rarely made eye contact with anybody on his daily walks but Eduardo drew in an absurd amount of admirers, just like... Eduardo.

“Ohmygosh, he’s so cute.”

Mark stared up into the face of a lady he knew vaguely from his street and just nodded.

“What is he?”

“A dik-dik,” Mark said automatically. Eduardo shrank back against his leg as the lady leaned down and Mark felt a surge of protectiveness that he would try and explain away later. He swept Eduardo up into his arms and ignored the way Beast darted away, as though afraid Mark would reach for him too. “Sorry. He doesn’t really like people.”

The woman looked disappointed but Mark continued on, depositing Eduardo back on the floor only when they were out of the general population of the park and into the wooded area. Beast was happily trotting on ahead and Mark snorted as Eduardo did the same, tiny legs pumping in an effort to catch up with the dog.

Mark heard a shrill ringing from his pocket and answered his phone with a sharp, “Hello?”

“Are you walking Eduardo?” Mark wondered how Chris always seemed to know where he was. It was spooky and he wanted to hang up but Chris only got worse when Mark ignored him.

“Mark?”

Eduardo leaped over a log Beast cleared easily and got his hind leg caught. Eventually, he managed to release it.

“He’s wild,” Chris said, when there was still no response.

“Wardo is not wild. He’s just… indisposed right now.” Mark stared at Eduardo as his hooves rested on a giant mound. He looked obviously vulnerable like this; pencil legs and fur and a stupid little face. “Indisposed is a nice way of saying ‘Eduardo is a dik-dik.’”

Chris just snorted.

“Wardo, Beast,” Mark said, pulling the phone away from his ear. Eduardo looked up immediately, trotting back over to Mark and bleating, little hooves resting on Mark’s flip-flop. Beast came ambling over a little while later, ears flicked forward in Eduardo’s direction. “Come on.”

“Did you want something or are you just checking up on me?”

“I’m hurt that you think I don’t trust you,” Chris said, affecting a mocking tone. At least, Mark hoped that was the mocking tone. Sometimes with Chris, it was hard to tell the difference between mocking and sarcasm. “Seriously. Are you sure you can handle all of this?”

“It’s Wardo.” Mark looked down at his best friend-cum-dik-dik and shrugged easily. “What’s not to handle?”

Eduardo blinked back, large eyes once more beyond expressive. Mark looked away before he could start to _feel_ things about it.

 

 

The thing was, Mark _noticed_.

Mark was used to an Eduardo who made noise and got in Mark’s space and wasn’t afraid to call him on shit. They used to touch all the time and it wasn’t until the depositions were over that Mark realized how much he missed it. Eduardo was tactile and Mark wasn’t, but somehow they had made it work and now Mark had to take care of an Eduardo who was a dik-dik and silent and overly affectionate. Dik-diks were incredibly shy and stayed in pairs and were extremely skittish amongst others. Eduardo had chosen him and Mark didn’t know why.

“Of course you do,” Chris said, when Mark asked him. Asking Dustin would just be inviting trouble, but asking Chris would actually yield results. “Come on, Mark. You can’t be that dense.”

“I’m not dense,” Mark snapped. The memory of something Eduardo said in the hotel room all that time ago made Mark pause. Eduardo had said that he couldn’t see things right in front of his eyes, and it hadn’t made sense then but Mark was beginning to think that it did now. “Eduardo said I missed stuff.”

Chris nodded. “He’s a creature that is by nature shy and skittish, Mark, but he singled you out of everybody to stand by.”

Something about the sentence rang true not just about Eduardo as a dik-dik but as a human as well. “We were fighting.”

“Exactly. Why would Eduardo cling to you like that when you’re fighting?”

“You don’t have to spell it out for me,” Mark said, pushing his laptop across the table. Eduardo and Beast were chasing each other around the yard and Mark swallowed. Eduardo stuck by Mark and wasn’t afraid of him because Mark was the one person Eduardo trusted. Still trusted and wanted. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Chris said. “What are you going to do about it?”

 

 

Eduardo stood on the desk, looking up at Mark. Mark guessed that was probably what passed for a confused expression when you were a dik-dik but he couldn’t be sure. Like the stand-off before, Mark spent a long time just looking at Eduardo before touching his back, and stroking the small tuft on the back of his neck.

“Wardo.”

Eduardo let out a sound that wasn’t a whistle and wasn’t the bleating sound that dik-diks generally made. This was a new sound that Mark couldn’t describe and didn’t want to. It felt personal, not unlike other things that Eduardo had done for him in the past, but he was only just realizing it.

“You could have just _told_ me.”

Pressing forward, Eduardo touched his head to Mark’s chest and they stayed that way for a while. It figured that Eduardo was a dik-dik whenMark finally came to such a life-changing realization about the two of them. To say that it crept up on Mark would be a lie. He had wondered sometimes if there wasn’t something there, but he had never seen Eduardo _want_ to make a move. If there was anything between them, Mark wasn’t going to take a chance like that on the only friend who seemed to want to spend time in his company for any length of time. That, and Mark really hadn’t been focused on anything besides making Facebook _work_ when the time would have been right for him and Eduardo.

Later, with Eduardo curled up on the cushion next to Beast, his head resting on Beast’s back and Beast’s nose pressed to Eduardo’s hind quarters, Mark reached out to touch Eduardo’s back. There was only so long he could stand Eduardo being like this without expecting some smart-ass reply back, or at least a scathing look. Wardo-as-a-deer just lay there, staring up at Mark with wide eyes. He made that whistling noise sometimes but apart from that, Mark sat in silence and it was – it was weird.

“You better change back,” Mark snapped, shutting his laptop and disappearing into the kitchen.

 

 

Sean visited the house because he had always possessed incredibly bad timing.

They were out in the backyard, and Dustin and some of the original interns were in the pool. Mark was relaxing as far away from the water as possible, his laptop resting on his knees and Eduardo making happy noises somewhere behind him. Chris had been amused for about ten minutes, watching Eduardo run through the grass, kick his legs and then run back under the chair Mark was sitting on. Then Dustin had tried to pull him into the pool and failed, so they were fighting when Sean sauntered into the yard like he owned it.

Everything seemed to stop the instant he dropped down next to Mark.

“Do you still have a key?” Mark asked, distractedly.

Sean just nodded and Chris mumbled something about taking it away from him. He’d stopped fighting with Dustin, though, so Mark didn’t comment.

“Mark, how’s it going?” Sean said, slapping Mark on the back with more force than was necessary.

Mark peered over his shoulder when he realised that Eduardo had fallen silent a little while ago. He was busy shuffling through the grass, ears pricked, as if Mark was somehow in danger around the guy. Not that it was an erroneous conclusion, but it was the first time Eduardo had made any outwardly aggressive sign since turning into a dik-dik.

“Wow, Mark, very billionaire to get a _deer_ ,” Sean said, leaning over to look at Eduardo.

Dustin snorted. “It’s an antelope, you moron.”

Sean bristled at the slur but completely ignored Dustin, standing over Mark and reaching down with a hand. Eduardo shrank back against the fence, looking warily at Sean’s hand and then up at Mark.

“I don’t think you should do that,” Mark said, half of his attention still on the laptop. “He might bite.”

“Really?” Sean said with a laugh. “He doesn’t look dangerous.”

Chris looked torn between amusement and anger but Mark figured the amusement would win out in a minute. Dustin constantly looked amused so Mark couldn’t decide what expression he would actually settle on.

“He never did to you, did he?” Mark remarked casually. “Wardo, play nice.”

Eduardo looked innocently up at Mark and then back at Sean’s hand.

“I mean it.”

“Mark, what- wait, did you just call him _Wardo_?” Sean said, turning his head to look at Mark but not bothering to move his hand. Unfortunately for him. With a swift movement, Eduardo took one step forward and bit down on Sean’s outstretched fingers. “Ow, little fucker!”

  


As he moved his hand away, he caught Eduardo on the side of the head, propelling him head over heels into the grass. He let out a plaintive cry and came to rest by the fence, shaking his head in a daze. The instant he’d started to roll, Mark was up and off the sun bed. Chris and Dustin were clambering out of the pool and even the interns had come out onto the patio to see what was happening, glaring angrily over at Sean.

“Wardo,” Mark said, bending down and scooping Eduardo into his hands.

“I didn’t mean to,” Sean said, his voice surprisingly small. Chris and Dustin were glaring at him but Mark was more focused on Eduardo.

His cry was small but he nuzzled at Mark’s thumb and Mark leaned down, kissing him on the nose. There was silence behind him but he ignored it in favor of checking Eduardo over. Thankfully, there were no injuries but Eduardo looked smaller somehow. He peered past Mark’s hands over at Sean and Mark looked up.

“Get the fuck out.”

Sean opened his mouth. “Whoa, Mark, it was an _accident_.”

“It’s my house,” Mark said, tucking Eduardo closer to his body. There was something smug about the look on Eduardo’s face when he looked at Sean but Mark ignored it. He had just been tipped head over heels into the grass so if he wanted to get smug about the way Mark was treating Sean, then he had every right to. Besides, it had been a long time since Mark had actually appreciated Sean’s input. “Leave your key on the breakfast bar on your way out.”

With that done, Mark carried Eduardo back into the house and deposited him on the counter. He pulled some Red Vines and berries out of the cupboard and set them down, watching Eduardo tuck easily into the berries while he chewed on the end of a Red Vine. He didn’t look up as Dustin escorted Sean from the house, or as Chris closed the sliding door that led out to the backyard. He just leaned against the counter, watching Eduardo eat his berries and sit haphazardly on the counter, legs askew.

 

 

Mark wasn’t exactly sure what he was waiting for; he was half expecting that his revelation and subsequent throwing of Sean out of his life, two things that Eduardo seemed to want the most, would just change Eduardo back into a human. Not so. He spent his days watching Eduardo and Beast run around his office, being annoyingly cute with the staff and interrupting his dinner. He spent his nights curled up on the sofa, laptop balancing precariously on his knees and both dog and dik-dik in various states of climbing all over him to get comfortable.

It was _nice_ but it wasn’t what Mark wanted.

 

 

“How long am I going to have to wait?”

Chris shrugged, pushing aside his paperwork and pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. Mark made a mental note to pencil in some downtime for both Chris and Dustin. They had been picking up Mark’s slack and he could thank them, he supposed, this way. “I don’t know, Mark. This isn’t exactly an everyday occurrence.”

There was silence, both of them staring at Eduardo’s head resting on Mark’s thigh, ears flicking back and forward as he slept. His body was tucked into Mark’s hoodie, as usual, and his weight was comforting against Mark’s stomach.

“Have you thought about what you’ll do if-“

“No,” Mark snapped, talking directly over Chris. “That’s not going to happen.”

“I’m not sugar-coating this for you, Mark, so _listen_.” Chris’ eyes were angry, but Mark could be just as mad if he wanted to be. “You don’t know that Eduardo is going to change back. You don’t even know what happened. This could be permanent and you’re going to have to do something about it.”

Mark stared down at Eduardo, trying to imagine a life where he was human and his best friend was a dik-dik. He couldn’t. He didn’t _want_ this. “I don’t-”

“Mark,” Chris said, his voice soft. Mark shook his head, not wanting to hear that from Chris, from anyone. He left the office before he could say something to damage this friendship too.

 

 

“I’m sorry,” Mark said, staring into the mirror. It was easy enough saying it to himself, harder to say it to Eduardo. Mark could picture his face, ears pricked forward and huge brown eyes blinking right at Mark. This was impossible. There was no way that he could do this to Eduardo. “You- Wardo, _dammit._ You let me ruin it.”

 _Liar_ , his subconscious supplied. Mark shoved his hands in his pocket and felt remnants of sawdust and berry stalks, testament to the day Eduardo had spent within it. He closed his eyes and let out a breath. “I ruined it and I-“

He swallowed thickly, turning at the sound of Eduardo and Beast waking up from their nap, already scrapping. It was play fighting but Mark swallowed down the urge to yell at them. He just wanted-

“I ruined it and I’m sorry.”

“Ow, _fuck_ ,” and Mark’s eyes widened. That voice was, it was- Mark was almost running for the bedroom, heart pounding in his ears because it had been so long and-

“Wardo,” he said, standing awkwardly in the doorway.

Eduardo was sitting on the edge of the bed, the bow-tie he had been wearing as Wardolope in his hands. “Mark.”

He didn’t look up and Mark didn’t quite know what to say. “Do you want-”

“Come here,” Eduardo said, turning his face away. He was giving off two different signals but Mark sat on the edge of the bed, as far from Eduardo as it was possible to get and still be in the same room. Eduardo reached for him, wrapping his fingers around Mark’s wrist and squeezing.

Mark stared down at his shoes; his wrist was burning wherever Eduardo’s skin touched his. “I didn’t think it could be worse.”

Eduardo didn’t ask him to elaborate. The last time Mark had spoken to the human Eduardo, they had been fighting. He wondered if Eduardo would remember that. Instead, Eduardo opted for honesty. “Sometimes I think I could live the rest of my life without you. Then I get turned into a nine-inch antelope and you’re the center of my universe.”

"Chris said the silence was the worst," Mark said, curling his fingers back over his wrist so that he could touch Eduardo's hand. Eduardo rolled his eyes and turned their hands around. Mark looked dumbly down at their clasped hands.

"Chris said, huh?" Eduardo's tone dripped disbelief but Mark just shrugged. "Well. You can tell _Chris_ that not being able to talk to him was - Look, Mark. I just - not being able to talk to you was the worst thing. Not being able to say sorry. Or that I-"

Mark pushed forward, cutting Eduardo off with a kiss. After a beat, he pulled back, more shocked than Eduardo seemed to look. “Oh.”

Eduardo’s eyes softened and he leaned forward, brushing his nose against Mark’s cheek. “I missed you.”

Mark thought that he meant for more than just the time he was an antelope. His heart hurt but he didn’t say anything, just closed his eyes and let himself breathe with Eduardo - _human_ Eduardo – real beneath his hands.

**Author's Note:**

>  **o1.** thanks to [alexthegreat](http://alexthegreat.livejournal.com) WITHOUT WHOM THIS FIC WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN OR EVEN THOUGHT UP. just check out how many times [i was forced to spam my tumblr](http://wardolope.tumblr.com/tagged/eduardo_is_actually_a_dik_dik). and then i changed my name to WARDOLOPE. this whole thing is out of hand BECAUSE OF YOU >:( BUT I HEART YOU MORE THAN ANYONE \0/  
>  **o2.** thanks to [profoundrice](http://profoundrice.livejournal.com) and [elefante_locura](http://elefante-locura.livejournal.com) who made THE BEST ART. I cannot even... stand how amazing the art they created for me was. I just – obviously you’ve seen it within the fic and you have the links to their entries but i’ll give them to you again:  
> [the amazing wardolope and beast](http://elefante-locura.livejournal.com/7895.html)  
> [wardolope and his rocking bowtie and the crowd yay](http://profoundrice.livejournal.com/9649.html)  
>  **o3.** [daisysusan](http://daisysusan.livejournal.com) and [elipie](http://elipie.livejournal.com) are amazing at managing to beat this fic into shape. they are both amazing and i love them endlessly. all remaining mistakes are, obviously, my fault.


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